How Do Employees Get Paid For Off-the-Clock Work?

Author=Tkgd2007, used and modified images from |Permission=According to [http://tango.freedesktop.org/Frequently_Asked_Question)

It’s no secret that employers often tell their employees they won’t be paid for more than 40 hours of work per week. Many employees follow their employers’ instructions not to record more than 40 hours on their weekly time sheets and work “off-the-clock”. But just because an employee is told he will not be compensated for that time does not mean the employee is not entitled to compensation.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employees are entitled to receive unpaid overtime. To establish a claim for unpaid overtime, an employee must prove that he performed work without proper compensation and that the employer knew or had reason to know of that work. Even if the employee has not kept precise records of the overtime work, courts may allow the employee to estimate the amount of overtime based on the employee’s own recollection. The fact that an employee is required to submit time sheets does not necessarily preclude payment for uncompensated time when the employee has under-recorded his time at the employer’s direction. That is what a federal circuit court recently said in Kuebel v. Black & Decker, Inc., Docket No. 10-2273-cv.